Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker, currently a Masters student at Cardiff University. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed below are her own.
In his commentary for Yahoo! Singapore, Daniel Wong questions the Singaporean habit of complaining, and asks that we learn to be more grateful and happy with what we’ve got in the first place.
On the one hand, I can see what he means: it feels as if the public conversation in Singapore has taken on darker overtones, full of anger and spite. Threads on websites and social media platforms are overflowing with angry people making rude comments on anything and everything. It sometimes feels as if there is nothing we can talk about in Singapore that won’t descend into vile mudslinging.
But on the other hand, one should take a closer look at what’s being said. Not everything can or should be easily dismissed as irrational, unreasonable anger. And not all anger is bad. There are many things that we should get angry about.
For example, people should be angry about the way some migrant workers are shamelessly exploited by employers in our country. People should be angry about the homophobia that helps provide public support for Section 377A of our Penal Code and perpetuates discrimination against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
“But isn’t it true that we can be grateful and push for change at the same time?” Wong asks.
Of course it’s true. And I’m sure Wong will be much relieved to find that this is already happening.
Many of the activists I have met working across a variety of causes – migrant rights, labour rights, LGBT rights, women’s rights, anti-death penalty and other civil liberties – do not hate everything about Singapore. They will be among the first to acknowledge the many good things Singaporeans enjoy. Some of them have lived and worked in other countries, and seen for themselves the suffering that is happening on a much larger scale elsewhere. They know to be grateful for what they have, and they are.
Yet gratefulness cannot come with blindness, and these people see the many flaws and injustices in our system. They fight for improvement not because they love complaining, but because they strongly believe that Singapore can be even better.
If they sound angry or strident rather than grateful and content, it is often to do with the urgency and seriousness of the issue. When abused migrant workers can be forcibly sent home by repatriation companies, an activist does not have time to point out that the roads on which those migrant workers are driven are in tip-top condition. As he races to Changi Airport to help these migrant workers, he does not have time to publicly observe that the skyline along the East Coast Parkway is especially beautiful, tell people what a wonderful job our city planners have done.
Activism and advocacy should not be expected to come wrapped up in flattery and sweet words. That is not their purpose, and telling people to “not be so angry” or to “not complain so much” or to “be more grateful” is not helping. It only serves to belittle and dismiss the important concerns that activists are trying to highlight.
I’m not denying the existence of utterly vile, melodramatic and useless comments on the Internet. I’m not condoning the random and often baseless accusations flung at the “pappies”. (The most ridiculous in recent memory are claims that “true blue Singaporeans” are being somehow being deliberately bred out, eliminated or replaced; stupid at best and repulsively xenophobic at worst.)
But one should remember that vitriolic trolls are not unique to Singapore. They are everywhere. They are the reason why there is one (optional, yet important) rule that circulates on the Internet: don’t read the comments.
Uh-oh. RT @helenlewis: I went in the comments.
— Kirsten Han (@kixes) September 21, 2013
We should not encourage/feed the trolls. But too often characterising Singaporeans as angry or “complaining just for the sake of complaining” obscures real issues that are in need of change, and of anger to propel that change.
COMMENT: Not all anger is bad
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